Friday, June 10, 2011

My pops was a proud member of the New York City Police Department. I know it's a huge surprise for a mick to be a cop. He started in the 9th precinct (otherwise known as the "shithouse") back when it was famous for being where cops went to get shot. After seventeen or some odd years walking the streets he was able to finagle his way into a sweet fingerprint detectives gig in the 123rd precinct on Staten Island...a wee bit safer.

Anywho, he was the kind of cop who never did anything crooked. He was the kind of cop who hated having a ticket quota and went out of his way to not screw people over. He once told me that he used to go to the local high school and fill his ticket quota there...except he would purposefully write the license plate number wrong or the wrong kind of car on the tickets so that if the kids were smart and read they could just throw it away and forget about it. If they were dumb and didn't thoroughly read it then they simply had less money to spend on drugs or other stupid shit. He reasoned he wasn't taking anything away from parents who had actual bills to pay.

I'm not here to praise my square edges father...my main point is I grew up with a healthy respect for the police department here in NYC. That is what made this past Wednesdays shenanigans so disappointing.

I got home from a night of not drinking because of antibiotics to a nervous and clearly distraught roommate. She called me over asking for advice. Apparently, on her walk home from the train she heard a loud crash behind her only to turn and see a guy on a motorcycle had collided pretty fiercely with an ice cream truck.

Roommate, being trained in CPR and seeing nobody else was willing to do something made the fatal mistake of coming to the aid of the felled bike enthusiast. I'm told he was in pretty bad shape....bones exposed, bleeding profusely and the like. Needless to say he was shocked, so was she, and roommate was simply concerned with calming him down and trying to get him some help.

However, while tending to him he took out a bag of something, handed it to her imploring her to take it. Both of them being pretty frazzled she took the baggie and threw it in her bag so in an attempt to calm him down and get a phone number she could call for him.

After the ambulance and cops arrived she came home. She forgot she had taken the bag and upon remembering, at home, took it out only to notice it was a big bag of drugs.

Roommate, thinking I was somehow competent because I read a statute book or two, waited for me to ask what she should do. I said the hassle free thing to do is flush it down the toilet. I said the "right" thing to do was bring it to the precinct so they can arrest this dude. I would have flushed it. Roommate, being a good and decent human being, decided to bring it to the precinct...I went with her.

We arrive with our big bag of drugs and present it to the guido doogie howser asshole that clearly graduated high school the night before whose uniform didn't even fit because he weighs 125 pounds soaking wet. He had absolutely no idea what to do. He was the picture of incompetence. Not only that but he started lecturing roommate on how you never take shit from strangers and "you should have flushed this down the toilet" ---- never mind that you're a cop and that's illegal and she was just trying to do the right thing.

So he humpty-dumps over to his "superior" "officer" to show her the big bag of drugs. They inspect it for a little while and she comes over to ask roommate the story and does so with a huge bitchy attitude. She then says "why did you bring this here, I have 30,000 things to do". I almost stole her baton to beat her with it.

She then asks roommate for identification, which we understand is necessary, but roommate was really nervous and just wanted to make sure this drug pedaling motorcycle dude wasn't going to find out who she was or where she lived so she hesitated in giving her ID and wanted to ask a few questions to make sure that wasn't going to happen. Well this contemptible and clearly criminal maneuver by my arch-roommate angered said really bitchy cop to the point where she started yelling at roommate and roommate started to tear up. I mean, most drug dealers do usually bring their big bags of drugs to a precinct...so they were right to be suspicious....huh?

I then stepped in and asked the cop, calmy I might add, "why are you yelling? She will give you her ID, she just wants to make sure this guy won't be able to find her". Cop then turned to me and started yelling at me. I fought off the urge to steal her gun and pistol whip her with it and yelled back "calm the eff down" and further explained the situation.

Roommate was assured it's police records and gave them her ID. At which point a third cop and second Doogie Howser reject came over to yell at her for ten minutes about why she shouldn't ever take stuff from a stranger. I mean literally yell. She explained that she wasn't concerned about the baggie, or herself, she was merely trying to calm this severely injured man down and take care of him as best she could. Well let me tell you, this was absurd behavior according to Doogie Howser II and should never have happened.

Finally, afer that douche was done with his lecture, an officer who was actually at the accident came over and treated roommate with respect. He assured her that they needed her information only so the D.A. could get in touch with her and that he could see she was nervous and that she had nothing to be nervous about. He actually knows the injured guy - apparently they go to the same tattoo parlor. The officer told roommate she didn't have to worry about him because he would "personally break his [motorcycle guy] other leg if he tried anything". He also told her she did the right thing....finally.

Needless to say roommate was upset. She was treated terribly because A) she tried to do the right thing and, B) she was scared of a criminal. On the walk home we agreed we'd never do anything like that again. These cops did more bad than good. I'm sure we weren't the first people to be treated that way simply for inconveniencing the cops (ya know, making them do their jobs). I wonder how many people don't report illegal things, or turn over evidence, or turn over dangerous materials simply because the cops will treat them like shit and accuse them of things. These cops acted disgracefully. NYPD cars drive around with the letters CPR down the side and they stand for "courteous, professional, respect" - none of that was present in the 114th precinct.

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Who really is the Tree?

JoshueTree

New York City

I am a born and raised member of the New York City intelligentsia. I am a recent graduate of Not as Useful a Degree as I Thought School of Law. I am currently underemployed due to the decision to attend this school.
I am the son of a teacher and a cop, and I'm incredibly Irish, how I'm not a priest, I do not know.
My dreams involve professional baseball, writing for Salon.com, being Arod's first son's agent in 16 years, being Chief of Staff for the junior Senator from South Carolina, meeting Natalie Portman, and challenging Bill Kristol to a game of poker and raising every hand.